against the dying of the light
by eleutheromaniac
Summary: Erwin Smith, one of the most famous generals of the Nazi Army, is highly aware that blackmailing a French general into serving underneath him, hiding a Jewish prisoner in a secret room of his home, and adopting three children - one of which shouldn't technically be alive - is likely to get him executed on the spot. He supposes that he's never really understood boundaries.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **So this is set in Nazi Germany during WWII. That being said, there are going to be deaths, countless instances of violence, and multiple racial remarks— I feel like it kind of just comes with the territory.

The pairings may not be so evident when the fic first starts out, but I promise that they'll come about eventually. I have a lot of ship feels for SNK though, and I have to say that it sucks that I can't cram everyone in here. /shot. Guess it just means that I'll be able to generate more fics for the fandom though, right? c;

As a warning to those who care: personalities may come off as a little OOC, just because the circumstances of the situations for each of the characters are different. It's what happens to us that shapes our personalities, right? But I promise that I tried to keep them as in-character as I could.

(Eren is still the intensely emotional brat that we've come to know and love tho, couldn't mess with that one. c;)

* * *

><p>The rain falls like blood onto the streets of the city and the solemn water meets with the crimson stains of the cement until the two become interchangeable.<p>

It's ironic, really, the way the sky is able to shine the way that it does despite the torrential downpour, and it's this irony that leaves the young boy's chest numb with an icy sensation of anger and sadness and this desire—this intense, almost ridiculous, desire—to eradicate those who have forced his life into the sorry excuse that it has now become.

Or maybe he just wants his parents back. He doesn't really know.

Amidst the rubble and the dirt, a hand is extended to him.

He looks up.

Above him is a man shining in military glory—the glory of his side, the glory of the Germans, not the _others_. He's tall and he's muscular and he has these blue eyes that pierce into the vast emptiness of the world before him with veiled emotion. There's a saber attached to his belt, and a gun too, and with a shock, the young boy realizes that the man before him has taken off his hat—something that is only done as a sign of respect. But who did he mean to respect? What is going on? Where is he, who is this man, what is he supposed to do now, what if—

"My name is Erwin Smith. I was a friend of your father. It was a terrible accident that an event such as this one occurred; the riots are becoming unstoppable nowadays because of the depression. What has happened here is absolutely unacceptable and I can do nothing but grieve for your loss with you."

His words aren't foreign, persay, but they are tinged with a robotic sense of duty that the young boy has never encountered before. He's used to praises filled to the brim with love, teasing remarks of affection, _mother and father wrapping him up in warm hugs in the middle of the night to keep him safe from the nightmares—_

"I'll take care of you now, Eren. I promise."

At the mention of his name, said boy blinks and stares harder at the man, this "Erwin Smith." There's something in the way his features are laid out, something about the pitch of his voice, something about how tall he stands with such a straight, straight back—

Something about that odd symbol on his clothing…

Eren doesn't know why, but he takes the older man's hands without a single regret.

* * *

><p><em>Do not go gentle into that good night,<em>

_Old age should burn and rave at close of day;_

_Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

* * *

><p><span>Ten Years Later. <span>

A man walks down a corridor, takes a sharp left, opens a door, locks it, strides to the bookshelf on the right-hand wall. Eyes scan for a particular novel, _Le Comte de Monte-Cristo_, almost immediately pinpointing it due to sheer memory, and he gently pulls it ever-so-slightly out of its place. The shelf in its entirety slides to the side, revealing a hidden hallway, and he can't help but wonder what the hell Erwin must have done in order to have such a device installed.

He supposes that it doesn't really matter.

The man pauses to make sure that the door is locked—after all, you can never be too sure anymore—before stepping into the void of darkness.

More turns, more empty halls, then, finally—

"L-Levi? Is that you?"

He allows himself a small smile as she runs forward to embrace him. "I feel like I've been alone here for the longest time."

There isn't an apology worthy enough to utter to her, so he saves his words. "It's for your own good."

"I know," she sighs, gently turning away from the man before her and Levi knows that he's said the wrong thing. Petra steps back from his arms in order to face the dimly lit room before him, haphazardly decorated with dying flowers and fading furniture and old memories of a beautiful life that once showed so much promise. "It's really terrible though, isn't it? I hate being treated like this, like an _animal_."

Levi's never been good with words, but they end up tumbling out anyway, "Better to be treated like an animal than to be killed on the spot. Though I hear that now they're cooping up Jews in camps and working them to death—so I suppose I should correct myself: it would be better to be treated more like a housepet than as a beast in the fields."

It probably wasn't appropriate to say, but the two of them have grown up with each other and have known each other for as long as either can remember, so it only makes sense that Petra chooses not to react negatively to his bluntness. Instead, she allows a small shrug and mumbles, "I'm just tired of this mess. That's all."

There's a pause once more. Then Petra hesitantly turns to stare at her childhood friend.

Levi takes in the greasiness of her once radiant strawberry blonde hair, the scar-like blue and purple bruises underneath her dull, sad eyes, the graying pallor of her skin, the emanation of desperate fear and helplessness engulfing the room around her and suffocating her under its staunch weight.

He tries to ignore the feeling of guilt within the very core of his being.

"Do you think it'll all be over soon?"

There's no real answer. He knows this. But he also knows that he has to give her some sort of response.

"Just trust in me and you'll be okay."

* * *

><p>"H-Hey, wait, Eren! Eren, wait for me!"<p>

There's a flash of pearly whites as the taller boy turns to look at his friend over his shoulder, "I can't do that, Armin! Come on, Father would be disappointed if you can't even catch a _fake_ Jew in a silly kids' game! Don't you want to be like Captain Levi one day, too?"

The blonde, still breathing heavily, ultimately gives up and falls to the ground with a thump. "Eren, you said that we were playing hide-and-go-seek. You know that I don't like this game."

"Awh, come _on_, Armin, you're never any fun," the brunet teases, but he turns and runs back to his adoptive brother anyway so that he can fall into a position beside him on the grass, chuckling when his haphazard tumble makes his friend flinch. "Don't worry, you know that I'm just kidding around with you. It's all in good fun."

The boy beside him sighs, but keeps his mouth shut, knowing that Eren is too stubborn to listen to him and rethink his words and thoughts. Then again, their circumstances are different entirely, so maybe Armin just doesn't know enough yet to understand his friend in his entirety. "I still don't like it. What would Miss Petra think if she ever caught wind of the games you like playing?"

Eren sits up with a glare and a mumbled, "Armin, we're not supposed to talk about that."

Armin realizes his mistake, upon noting the instantaneous shift in his friend's mood and decides not to say anything more.

"Regardless of whether or not we're supposed to call him 'Father,' we can still choose to condone his actions. I know that he's one of our army's best and all, but sometimes I can't help but question his decision making. In my opinion, most of his choices just lead to mistakes in the long run..."

Blue eyes quietly observe the animated nature of his rambling friend, and a single thought alone runs through his head: _But he decided to take _you_ in, didn't he?_

* * *

><p>"Sir, are you sure about this? She's not Aryan. Shouldn't she be sent to a concentration camp? Or killed?"<p>

"I mean, she doesn't look like a Jew or a gypsy to me, so…"

"Quiet," Erwin demands, shooting an annoyed glare at the men behind him. They obey without another question and the commander takes this opportunity to hasten his step.

The young woman beside him seems to respond to this intuitively, matching his pace without even the slightest of hesitations, and upon his noticing of this, Erwin can't help but wish that all of his troops were as obedient as her.

He doesn't really know who she is—not at all—but there was something in her broken gaze when they stormed the orphanage only hours previous that refused to allow him to abandon her. Her plain dress was clearly too short for her and torn in several places while caked with dirt in others. Even before they had made their presence known, it was obvious that she was an outcast amongst her peers and isolated in a world of her own. In some cases, like Eren's, Erwin would simply note it as a sign of a daydreaming personality, but in her's, it was clear that the situation was different: she had lost herself in her own nightmare, not in her own frivolous fantasies.

"We'll be home soon," he tells her.

There's no response.

You'll _be home soon_, she corrects in her head, I'll _just be in another prison._

* * *

><p>Erwin's entourage arrives back in time for dinner. The troops that had accompanied him are dismissed as he motions for the young woman to enter the house and leads her towards the humble dining room.<p>

Levi notices their appearance immediately, a curious eyebrow halfheartedly shooting upwards at the stranger by Erwin's side.

Armin ceases to laugh at Eren's joke and stares on at the newcomer in innocent curiosity.

Eren continues to talk about something that he finds absolutely hilarious until he realizes that his audience is no longer paying him any mind, making him turn to face the intruders with annoyance.

His heart plummets.

"This is Mikasa," Erwin starts, "Her parents are dead. She'll be staying with us from now on."

She fidgets uncomfortably underneath their hard stares, and, if she didn't have any sense of pride left, she probably would have moved to hide behind her savior. Instead, she forces herself to stand even straighter and tilt her chin upwards as though silently saying that she doesn't care about whatever opinions they have of her.

The silence remains, though Levi bothers to take the time to shrug and continue eating while Armin has the foresight to turn to Eren in fear of how the other will react.

"There's an empty seat over there, next to Eren—he's the young one with the dark hair. I'm going to wash this blood off of me, and then I'll join the four of you for dinner."

Erwin doesn't wait for a response from anyone before pivoting on his heel and exiting the room.

Not knowing what else to do, Mikasa takes a hesitant seat next to the silently fuming teenager, slightly uncomfortable with the way his eyes (_how do they manage to be such a bright shade of green?_, she can't help but wonder) attempt to bore through her head.

She awkwardly stares down at the empty place setting in front of her, not knowing if she yet had a right to ask for a portion. She knows that they hadn't been sure whether or not Erwin would be immediately returning, which is probably why it's empty, but the excuse does nothing to assuage her current situation.

Noticing her silent dilemma, Armin stands up out of his chair and picks up the empty bowl in front of her. "Sorry about that," he says with a hesitantly apologetic smile, "I'll get you some from the kitchen."

Her lips part to thank him, but the boy—Eren—responds first, angrily slamming his fists onto the table. "This is absolutely _ridiculous_! What authority do we have to take in another mouth to feed? Who are you even?" His frustrated glare continues to eat away at the dirt littered on Mikasa's skin, and she's not too sure what it is that she's done to anger him like this, but she knows that it's not yet the time and place for her to speak. "You're not one of us! You're another stranger, an outsider. What right do you have to—"

His rant is cut off by the man who currently holds the position of head of the table.

"Eren," Levi orders. "I don't know what the hell you're trying to do right now, but stop whatever the fuck it is and finish your soup. The maid's out and I was in charge of making it tonight, so if you don't even bother to finish your serving, I'm going to take it as an insult."

There's a beat of silence before the younger man falls back into his chair with a sickened frown. Armin seems to internally debate what he should do next, but with a single glare from the eldest present, he dashes into the kitchen.

Mikasa allows her eyes to shift to meet Eren's: there's something about them that she can't quite pinpoint, and she supposes that if she hadn't developed such an apathetic personality, then maybe she'd have the heart to feel offense at his seemingly immediate distrust of her. His hair is unruly and falls over his face in a haphazard fashion that only accentuates the green of his eyes and their weight on her body makes something inside her shift—though she doesn't know what is is.

She doesn't know much about this boy, Eren. But she gets the feeling that his existence only means trouble.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **Whelp, that's the end of the prologue!

Next chapter will skip ahead a bit (a couple of months, at the most) and will be posted soon (hopefully). I have a plot outline that's pretty much already set in stone, so hopefully it own't take too long. c;

Thanks for reading! c:  
>Comments and the like are super appreciated!<p> 


	2. Chapter 2

"_Tell me something, Father."_

"_Yes, Eren, what is it?"_

_There's a moment of hesitation as the young boy twists his hands together nervously, avoiding the older man's stare. "A-Armin says that you said you're a bad guy. But you're the nicest person I know, right next to Mister Levi. So I don't get it. Why are you telling him that you're bad? Why does he believe you?"_

_Erwin stares at the child before him for a moment in thought, before standing up out of his chair, advancing towards him, and kneeling down to his eye level while his large hand gently rests on the shoulder of his adopted son. "Everyone believes what they choose to believe, Eren. There's a right and there's a wrong, but they're two things that someone like me can't teach you_—_it's beyond that." He pauses in the hopes that this answer will be enough, but when the overwhelming confusion is still highly prominent on the young boy's face, he sighs, and chooses to continue. "One person can't always make a difference on their own. I can tell you one thing, and I can tell it to you over and over again, but if everyone else tries to tell you that I'm wrong, who are you going to believe?"_

"_You, Father, of course!" comes the quick response._

_A sad smile draws itself onto Erwin's features. _

"_Then, Eren, I'm the bad guy. I'm bad because I work with people that are so blind that they oppress an entire population for inexplicable reasons. I'm bad because I closed my eyes to what was happening around me because I wanted to believe that, in the end, it would be for the better. I'm bad because I've allowed myself to become apathetic and numb. My apathy is what made me so terrible. And now, I've dragged others into my mess in the hopes of offering at least a few individuals protection. And now, those people are painted red with my sins_—_and getting rid of those sins for myself, for all of us, could mean that those people may cease to exist."_

_A frown. "Father, I don't understand what you mean."_

_The general silently chastises himself for saying too much and stands up from his position._

"_Well, Eren, I'll do my best to change that."_

_He ruffles the small boy's hair before exiting the kitchen through the back door, light flooding the room where the discussion had taken place, illuminating his silhouette. For a second, he just stands there, and it's like he's debating whether or not he should say something more._

_He doesn't._

_The door swings shut behind him._

* * *

><p>The room is unnaturally clean and filled with a number of men in sharp uniforms and hard glares. Armin's not too sure why he's present, why he couldn't sit it out like he's sat every <em>other<em> one out, but he knows that it's best if he doesn't ask questions. His collared shirt seems too stiff and the formal jacket that he wears over it seems to suffocate him with an unrealistic amount of warmth. It's all too big for him: the clothes, the room, the discussion—he hates it.

He can't help but allow his eyes to wander towards the older boy beside him, not knowing how to feel when he realizes that his adoptive brother wears the outfit with an uncanny perfection: the measurements have tailored him perfectly, accentuating the barely-there maturity that he possesses within his adolescence; his posture is straight, yet laidback, allowing him to boast an air of confidence that is exuded from his very being; his hair is, for once, ruly and combed toward the side, making him look older and more sophisticated.

Armin can't help but self-consciously regard his own, blond locks that had been too long to be combed into the typical hairstyle worn by the other individuals in the room, but too short to be pulled back in a makeshift ponytail as well. The result ended up being an embarrassing mishap of pins and gel that made him look like a young child trying to fit in the role of a much larger man.

Though that was probably the most accurate depiction of his situation anyway.

"Hey, Erwin," a man calls as he stops in front of the man's two adopted sons, staring directly at the boy with bright green eyes. "Your son is going to make a fine soldier one day! Just look at him, he already looks so comfortable in our clothing! Tell me, have you signed him up for the Hitler Youth?"

Erwin strides over beside the man, presumably a high ranking official within the Nazi party. The way that his calculating blue eyes seem to look down upon Eren's beaming face and Armin's awkward demeanor immediately makes the latter turn his gaze away. "I have _two_ sons, Darius," the general corrects calmly, smoothly avoiding the question at hand. "And both of them, I'm sure, are thankful for your praise."

The other man—Darius—opens his mouth as though he is to speak, but is cut off as Levi enters the conversation, casually adjusting the cravat around his neck. "Sir, I believe that your wife has been looking for you in the hall. I think that she wishes to depart—with or without you."

Darius seems surprised for a moment, before nodding a silent thanks and walking off.

"Zackly's married?"

Levi only shrugs. "It was a lucky guess. He just looked like he was being annoying again and I figured that I'd save you all from whatever the hell it was he had to say."

"Good call."

Armin, allows a small smile at the two older men before his eyes drift towards Eren, whose eyes are glistening with excitement as he stares after the departing figure. "A fine soldier… _Me_, a fine soldier…"

Blue eyes flicker back towards the muted conversation between the two army officials beside him, slightly disappointed when he realizes that they aren't listening.

* * *

><p>"It just sucks, you know?" The young woman mumbles with a frown as she kicks the rotting wood of the table placed in the center of the room. "I can understand why they're doing what they're doing to me, but you don't deserve this. A child doesn't deserve to live like this…"<p>

Mikasa says nothing as her eyes silently regard the older woman before her.

It's not often that Mikasa spends her days with Petra. It's not like people don't know about her existence: there were other soldiers there when Erwin decided to spare her in the orphanage and take her in as one of his own—she knows that. However, she also knows that it's something incredibly frowned upon, like a secret that's not really a secret, it's something that everyone knows about, but people don't acknowledge it up front: they choose to whisper about it in hushed conversations with bitter tones and harsh judgments; they choose to condemn her adoptive father behind his back and feign ignorance when they speak to him face-to-face.

But Erwin is a smart man. Mikasa is sure that he knows of their lies.

Most days, Mikasa is free to wander throughout the Smith property to her heart's content. She lounges in the parlor, reading various assortments of books. She falls asleep in the garden, praising the sunlight and its warm touch on her body. She sits with Erwin and stares at the fireplace and cleans alongside Levi and occasionally discusses books with Armin. Sometimes she sneaks Eren some of her food at the dinner table when he's not looking, because he always seems to be hungry whenever she can't stand another bite.

She feels the utmost pity for Petra and feels guilt when the older woman says that _she_ feels guilt for _her_.

It's just not fair.

"I'm fine, really," she mumbles as the older woman turns to face her.

Petra's features immediately soften, as she takes a seat beside her rare guest. "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. Maybe it's just nice knowing that there's actually someone _listening_ to me rant sometimes, you know?" Mikasa quietly notes that she seems more anxious than usual, and immediately feels guilt for not visiting in the past week. The strawberry blonde wrings her hands together in clear discomfort as her voice drops to a whisper. "I know that he's busy—that they're all busy—but I don't want them to forget about me… I don't want them to not remember me…"

Mikasa isn't sure what it is that she should say because she knows that whatever words she forces to come out of her mouth will not be enough to illustrate the emotions she feels when she hears the older woman speak. Emotions and words and feelings are all things that she's not very comfortable with, and listening to Petra always intensifies her desire to one day learn how to articulate and define all the thoughts in her head.

One day.

"There's been a lot going on. Erwin and Levi are barely in the house anymore and Armin's been busy trying to keep Eren sane."

To her surprise, the amber-eyed woman actually chuckles at this. "Typical Eren. I haven't seen him in years, but I'm not surprised to hear that he's still causing everyone trouble."

Mikasa subconsciously raises an eyebrow at this. The Eren that she knows would never have dreamed of visiting anyone that he viewed as an outsider, especially a Jew like Petra. To hear that there was once a time when he would go out of his way to meet with the older woman came as a sort of shock.

Petra laughs again once she catches the brunette's expression. "I'm not sure how he behaves now, but the Eren I know was a sweet kid. After Erwin took him in, it was really just Levi and I in the house—Armin was here too, I think, but Eren hadn't been particularly interested in him at all. He had found Armin to be kind of boring, I think, and that made Armin feel kind of embarrassed, so the two of them ended up in this awkward relationship in which Eren would only talk to Armin if he had to, and Armin would only talk to Eren if he felt like he had something interesting enough to say—and his self-confidence hasn't changed much, so I'm sure that you can imagine how that worked out." Mikasa can't help but smile at the joke, anticipating the rest of the story. She had always had an affinity for various tales, and that, combined with the simple fact that she had lived here for a month without hardly knowing anything about the past of her fellow housemates, peaked her interest incredibly.

"Anywho, Eren took a strong liking to Levi. From what I understand, Erwin was busy with a number of things going on around the area, so he wasn't home too often. Levi and I had only been residents in this estate for a few months, so I was genuinely surprised when he told me that Erwin had entrusted him with the property while he left. I don't really understand it—and it's probably because I don't really understand Levi _or_ Erwin—but that was that. The two have had a very strong bond for a long time. I think they trust one another with their lives.

"Erwin was the only one out of the four of us that Eren knew, so I guess he was a little lost without the general. The next best thing, I suppose, was Levi, and the kid latched himself onto him whenever possible. So when Levi came down to visit, Eren would too. And I think that, over time, I became something like a surrogate mother for him," she paused to blush for a moment, obviously not sure sure whether or not she should finish the already-taboo thought. "He lost his mother at an age much too young, and I've always wanted to be a mother. We clicked instantly—much to Levi's annoyance."

She stops with a smile and her eyes glaze over as though she's reliving those moments in her head, over and over again. Mikasa doesn't have the heart to break the trance.

It isn't until they hear footsteps coming that Petra blinks and begins to quickly rearrange the room to look as though it has always been a vacant storage room ("_You never know what happens up there when you're all the way down here_," she had once explained, "_Levi always says that it's better to be safe than sorry—though I don't think that my doing this will make much of a difference in the long run if something up there really has gone wrong. I've learned to just do as I'm told though."_). Mikasa stands up out of her chair as well, scrambling to help the older woman out.

When all's said and done and the two of them are hiding inside a large cabinet of sorts, amongst blankets and a small assortment of acute weaponry, Petra turns to look at Mikasa with a hesitant smile. "Hey, I know what you think about Eren, but I can tell you this much with the utmost confidence: beneath it all, beneath his glares and his words and his _being_, I can promise you that Eren Jaeger is a good person."

Mikasa doesn't know what to say to that, so she says nothing.

"He's a good person…"

* * *

><p>The room is empty now, Erwin having seen the last of his guests out of the house. Levi is angrily glaring at the crumbs on the refreshments table and Eren's still kind of in his own dreamland and Armin's left to awkwardly stand there without knowing what it is that he should do. He starts by taking out the pins in his hair and running his hand through it in order to remove whatever remnants of gel that he can.<p>

"It took me _ages_ to clean all of this," Levi mutters angrily, "And now I have to spend ages _more_ doing it again."

"You don't _have_ to, Levi. We have maids for that."

Slate gray eyes narrow at the comment and it's clear from the expression alone that Erwin has crossed some kind of a boundary that has obviously been crossed before, but the effect now is just as strong as it first was. "Tch, I'm pretty sure you've only hired maids as a formality. They don't even _do_ anything," he snorts, turning his grimace away from the older man. "Whatever. I'm going to pay a _visit_, then handle the situation on my own time."

They all know what a "visit" really entails. No further words have to be spoken.

"I'll join you."

There's a beat of silence until the Frenchman scoffs. "It's been a while, hasn't it? Might as well bring the brat along too." The sentence immediately pulls Eren out of his own thoughts as his expression darkens, and the sight is enough to make Levi snort. "Not you, you egomaniac. I was talking about blondie over there." Green eyes narrow a little less at that, but it's clear that the young man is still upset.

Armin blinks but nods in understanding with a shy smile. "Sure, I'd love to go. I haven't seen Ms. Petra in the longest time."

"Eren will be coming along too," Erwin chimes in, casting a condescending glance at his older adoptive son.

The boy in question clearly looks as though he's about to throw a fit, but is interrupted when Levi throws in, "It's not just Petra, by the way. Mikasa's down there too," with a slight smirk.

No one is all too surprised when the young boy lets out unintelligible mumbles and groans of anger, and the two army officials don't hesitate to simply grab him by either arm as Armin trails along quietly.

* * *

><p>When Petra opens the door and sees the four men before her with varying confusions of an assortment of emotions—regardless of the fact that not all of said emotions are pleasant ones—she feels something light up in chest as tears prick her wide amber eyes and when she throws herself forward to engulf them all in a spontaneous group hug, she almost thinks that she's flying.<p>

Mikasa, who's still stepping out of her previous position within the cabinet, looks on at the scene before her quietly, taking in Petra's delight and Levi's embarrassment and Armin's apologies and Eren's awkwardness and Erwin's vague amusement. It's a family, she realizes slowly, a dysfunctional family, yes, but a family nonetheless. As the young woman excitedly leads the quartet in and rushes around trying to rearrange the furniture in the small room, Mikasa can only stand and stare and think.

"Are you guys hungry? Thirsty? Oh, come on, don't be shy! Here, here, take a seat!"

All three men, save for Eren, sit down with at least a trace of a smile on their features—the intensity of the grin varying for each man. They each kindly turn down her offer with thanks, while Eren continues to stay silent and alternate his expression between restrained anger and troublesome discomfort and something that looks a little bit like guilt. He manages to mutter a vague, "I'm okay, there was a lot of food and drink at the party," to which Armin effectively elbows him in the ribcage.

Petra's movements falter at that, and for a moment it looks like she's frozen in time as she stands there, back toward all of them as the words sink in.

Then a laugh that almost sounds genuine escapes her lips as she turns to them with a smile on her face, "Oh, yes, that's right! How was it?"

There's clear hesitance at first in the conversation, but it soon takes off, allowing Mikasa to comfortably take a seat between Armin and Levi. In all honesty, it's really only Petra and Armin carrying words forward, as the others in the room are clearly consumed with other thoughts.

When that topic shows signs of fading, the strawberry blonde turns to face Eren with an expectant grin. "And Eren, how are you? I don't think that I've seen you in years! Look at how much you've grown!"

The boy flushes at her remarks, uncomfortably fidgeting in the wooden seat underneath him as he mumbles a response. "I-I'm doing okay, I guess. Nothing out of the usual."

Petra giggles at the response and the others in the room can't help but wonder if she's aware of the way Eren has spoken of her outside her presence. Mikasa's eyes slide to the woman before her, before shifting to meet Levi's, and it's clear that there's a certain motive behind her actions and Mikasa almost thinks she knows what they are, but she can't be so sure. "Oh, but that sounds so _boring_. The Eren that I remember once told me that he would invent wings for himself, and for me, and for Levi, so that the three of us could—"

"I've _changed_," comes the sharp reply, the young man's hands clenching together in some sort of mute agitation.

It's silent for a moment, the words cutting through the air like a knife.

"I see," is Petra's only response and whatever bubbliness she had exuded becomes nonexistent as she stares at the young boy before her quietly.

The silence returns.

In an attempt to assuage the tension, Levi mutters something about how he's changed his mind, he'd love some tea, but Petra only offers him a solemn, "I'm afraid that I don't have any hot water. I usually just let the leaves soak in a cup then suck on them later."

"Aren't they bitter that way though?" Armin hesitantly asks.

His only response is a shrug with eyes that aren't able to meet his, and after witnessing the exchange, Eren slams his fists against the table as he stands up out of his chair, leaving the room without a single word.

Petra trembles at the sound of the closing door.

Levi glares at the vacant wood, as though the intensity of his gaze will be enough to erase the previous event in its entirety, but when it becomes clear that it isn't going to work, he gives his childhood friend's shoulders a light squeeze, mumbling a faint, "I think that sounds wonderful. And the leaves are in the cupboard?"

She nods and looks as though she is about to get up and get them herself, but the older man shakes his head and lightly pushes her back into her seat. "It's fine, I can get it."

Erwin watches the exchange between the two in deep thought, his gaze level, but not blank, and it's clear that there's something he's trying to find—an answer, a solution, an explanation—yet he stays silent.

"_I need you to help me find somebody_."

He chases all his thoughts away when Levi places a chipped mug in front of him with ashen flakes of diluted green, a silent warning in his eyes before he turns his attention away from the master of the house.

Tired blue eyes allow themselves to look upward at the woman before him, her stringy hair and graying skin and dulled amber eyes. "Thank you for the tea, Petra. It's lovely." But even when the comment is spoken, he's not really looking _at _her, he's looking _past_ her, as though somehow the key to understanding is found there.

* * *

><p><strong>an:** wow, the writer's block was definitely strong this time around. for some reason, no matter how hard i tried, i couldn't get the words to come out the way i wanted them to and the flow seemed way too choppy— though it's something that I should've expected since I'm not really used to writing long fics at all lololol

anywho, thank you all so much for the feedback after the first chapter! thoughts and comments are definitely appreciated, so please keep them coming. c:

until next time!


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